I first joined USACO discord as early as Aug 7, 2021 (according to discord, but i think it may have been earlier). For reference, I was silver at the time, and my first codeforces contest was around Aug 18, 2021.
Based on my early messages it appears i was there to ask stupid questions (“can i code data structures in c”) and get help debugging code (“heres 200 lines of code that dont work can someone tell me why”) [thanks to everyone who had to put up with 8th grade me].
But perhaps, my best memory of USACO server back then, is that the recent-contest channel changed names every codeforces contest, like cf-6767 or something. And after the cf round, there was so much discussion that the moderators had to group them into threads by problem.
There were many really orz people there, who would later become handles I looked up to, like purplecrayon or lunchbox or willy106.
I don’t really remember much, but I think sometime soon the more orz people started leaving, the server started becoming more degenerate, there was less discussion, and people stopped changing the channel name (with no implied causation and/or order). Also COVID ended, perhaps that is nontrivially correlated.
Anyway, over time the productive discussion fell, and the amount of degeneracy increased, which drove away more people.
But while people were still there, I did learn a lot. Most of my segtree implementation was taught to me by waymo. I think I talked so much with waymo that the people at camp called me a waymo clone. There were a lot of cute problems set by people there. Post-contest discussions were still there.
Probably, a nontrivial amount of motivation to go and grind for camp was from the USACO server, and it is probably made me nontrivially better at cp as well.
An aside about college-apps channel: I, like many others, spent (too much) time there. I’ve seen like almost a generation of kids apply to college and most of them get swept :sob: This is actually where I learned about the type of stuff people do for college, and also where I became (correctly) disillusioned with college apps.
I think during the period of time between like 8th and 10th grade I spent an unhealthy amount of time on USACO discord, but whatever.
Perhaps around like a year ago USACO server has become so dead that almost no productive discussion happens, so I haven’t really looked at it except when I’m pinged, I guess. It’s definitely nowhere close to where it was when I first joined, unfortunately.
Maybe the reason is that CP is declining? It definitely was at its peak around early 2020, and USACO server was definitely at its peak then for the same reason. Maybe less people are just doing cp and/or USACO in general, this is a possibility. Or maybe USACO server just fell off.
I sometimes miss discussing problems and similar, I don’t have anywhere else I’d want to do it now that USACO server is basically dead. Like I could do it in GF server but everyone there is too highly rated for me to understand anything, and they only seem interested in the last problem :skull:. maybe i should just discuss in MIT server
Anyway I’ll be trying to do one usaco problem from tomorrow to the first contest (and hopefully after that too) :pray:. lmk if you have any suggestions.
